an old writer and his words

  • TOZAN’S NO GRASS

    When you wanderin search of the waydo you stop at a meadowreplete with wildflowersor the barren fieldbereft of grass and plants.The wise man knowsthe barren fieldis the garden he needs. A reflection on Case 89 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)

    Lou Faber

  • RIDING A TIDAL WAVE

    For how long had he been staring?He didn’t know, didn’t need to,time had ceased to matter,carried off on the gravitational tide.He had been walking for daysto get to this place, each stepa new beginning, each going nowhere.He knew he might seek solace here,knew he could never leave,here, now, was his ancestral home.There was a succulence…

    Lou Faber

  • THUMB

    She asks me howI can be so goodat growing plantswhen she hasno luck at all with them. I pause, as if thinking,try and hide the inwardsmile, and respondI just put themin the ground.I don’t tell herthat I also hopethat the rains will comeoften enoughto keep them alive. And I certainlydo not tell her thatwhen they…

    Lou Faber

  • IN THE JUNGLE

    If you close your eyesyou can imagine that this gardenwas once a tropical jungleas imagined by some cleverFloridian striving to separatemore tourists from theirdwindling travellers checks. It has been carefully done over,plants native and ornamentalreplacing the vines and trees,the alligators, real and imaginarygone, now an exhibit of Lego animals,the orchids in bloom, andyou wonder why…

    Lou Faber

  • NATURALIA NON SUNT TURPIA

    When did we stop being of the soil and begin to fear it, to tell our children not to touch the ground, it is dirty where once it was only dirt, and we put in our mouths, from time to time if only to drive our mothers crazy. She says if you are going to…

    Lou Faber

  • MORNING SICKNESS

    Early this morning the sky was pregnant with the rain that would inundate our afternoon, the sun a struggling visitor then, deciding the battle was lost and sliding away behind the clouds. It is afternoon now and our thoughts of the morning have been washed away, the plants no longer thirsty, risk drowning. We live…

    Lou Faber

  • AT THE EDGE

    He says we are getting to the point where we can see almost to the edge of the universe, see the moment when all that we know was created, see gravitational waves cast off by the collision of neutron stars. She says that is all well and good, but why can’t he see that he…

    Lou Faber